"This allows the United States to persist in
describing itself as the freest country on earth, although by nearly every
objective criterion, most European nations are more liberal and free than the United States."

At the
beginning of United States history - exactly 400 years ago
in Virginia and a little later in New England - sectarianism, a spirit of
adventure, religion and greed drove immigrants to America. In the 19th Century, escaping
poverty became the dominating motive for migration, and it still is. Others
even more desperate had no other choice: they came to save life and limb from
persecution.

To this
day, all of this determines the USA, shapes her political language
and justifies her self assuredness, as is evidenced by the way she so
generously admits legal as well as illegal migrants. But only to a certain
degree does the story of migration - that constant and noble pride at being a
place of refuge - explain the perception that America has of itself.

Brazil and Argentina, Canada and Australia are also immigrant nations. The
Brazilian melting pot is perhaps even more successful than that of North America. But it is in the USA alone that one finds a
historically uninterrupted relationship to a group of founding fathers, amongst
whom were the best political philosophers and policymakers of their time and
our civilization. What Jefferson and Adams, Hamilton and Washington
accomplished and conceived of is valid to this day: The United States is more
directly connected with the great age of the Enlightenment than any other nation in this world.

FROM WASHINGTON TO WAYNE

For generations, Europe has gotten accustomed
to regarding the United States as a young nation. At
the same time in the midst of our lethargy, we tend to forget that the United States is the oldest of
today's existing republics. And it was the pioneer myth that more than anything
else shaped how the United States was perceived by the
outside world: John Wayne superimposed on George Washington.

But the U.S. draws its pride and the
perception of its special calling, at least as much from the achievements of
its founding fathers. This manifests itself in monuments like the Jefferson
Memorial in the capital, WashingtonDC, and in the way they carefully maintain
the physical condition of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence,
both of which are ranked as nearly divine in the United States.

For the
people of the United States, respect for their own heritage
is undoubtedly a source of strength and stability. It helped them endure the
upheaval of four dreadful years of civil war which cost the lives of three
percent of the population. It also kept the United States from succumbing to darkness in
its domestic affairs, even during those times that the authority of the Supreme
Court was ignored.

In the
220 years of its history, the American republic has not always been a model -
but it overcame break-downs like the Great Depression in the 1930s without succumbing
to the temptation of totalitarianism; it overcame McCarthyism in the post-war
era; and it will overcome the damage that the present President has done to its
basic values and fundamental rights.

And while
it is a pillar of American democracy, that healing strength that is founded in
the cult of the founding fathers has a rather peculiar consequence: The
intentions of these political actors of two centuries ago are the ultimate
touchstone for conditions in the United States today; and to this day it is
this backward-perspective that to a great extent influences America’s
perceptions of the rest of the world.

Americans
are hardly conscious of this, and since they never discuss it, the phenomenon
is hardly registered in Europe. But anyone who listens to the way Americans discuss
themselves is surprised at America's implicit self-comparison, less with real
foreign countries than to another, mythical, abroad. And it's this
imaginary abroad which is manifestly ruled by an unrestrained monarch
where no constitutional court dominates state and government, and where people
are not equal and less free than the citizens of the much-blessed United States.

The
collective points of reference, it seems, are neither regimes in Russia or China, nor certain African
quasi-autocracies - which would no doubt render unflattering comparisons. And
the democracies of Europe or Latin
America
obviously don't foot the bill. It appears that the abroad against which
the United States established and still defines
itself is none other than the England of religious persecution lead by
King George.

POINT
OF REFERENCE 1776

Not: “We
are no dictatorship” but: “We are not a monarchy,” is what editors and
commentators tend to write whenever they condemn President George W. Bush’s excessive
use of authority - and even then the emphasis is on the first word of the
phrase. This raises the question of whom and what this refers to, and the
answer points again and again to a past that serves as a point of departure for
America.

In America, the collective image of foreign
countries is a mythical one, preserved as if in formaldehyde, handed down from
the time of the founding fathers with the Kingdom of England circa 1776 unconsciously serving
as the main point of reference.

This
allows the United States to persist in describing itself
as the freest country on earth, although by nearly every objective criterion,
most European nations are more liberal and free than the United States. One only has to recall the
repressive American culture of prohibition and punishment.

It is in
this way that the tradition-arrested Americans protect themselves against the
pressure to compare their own achievements and social structures against real
foreign examples. Thus the myth and collective emotion stabilize society. But
this happens at the expense of critical thinking and lessons learned. It is a
double-edged phenomenon that has worked its way into every aspect of American
public life.

The Pilgrims land on Plymouth Rock: A vision of America indelibly etched in the nation's conciousness.

King George III of England: Even today, Americans see their adversaries as embodiments of him and the despotism they associate with him ...

The self-image of America: 'George Washington super-imposed on John Wayne'

Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and the 3rd President of the United States: Has our lionization of the founding fathers clouded our judgement of today's world, or does it help us?

The Declaration of Independence: For Americans, more like divine scripture than a legal document. [Click photo for super-large image]